Sink or Swim
by jaded088
Summary: Oneshot. Natsuki's thoughts immediately after the final battle of the HiME Carnival.


**Title**: Sink or Swim  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: Mai-HiME  
><strong>CharactersPairing**: Fujino Shizuru & Kuga Natsuki  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG-13  
><strong>Genre<strong>: Drama/Angst  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Natsuki's thoughts immediately after the final battle of the HiME Carnival.

* * *

><p>As I lay in my bathtub, staring up at the remnants of spider webs on the ceiling, all I can think about are those expectant eyes looking at me for an answer. That and how well the windows actually did at keeping out the frigid, late October air before they got destroyed like the rest of my apartment.<p>

Shivering, I pull the blanket I managed to find amongst the rubble higher up until it's right below my nose. God, it's fucking freezing. But I didn't know where else to go after our last battle as HiME, and before I knew it, I was here.

I couldn't stand staying around the others—they just kept looking at me. Well, not just me, they were looking at Mai too, but it was obvious that they were looking at us for an answer—looking for us to take charge and tell them what to do when we didn't even know what to do ourselves. At least Mai had tried to say something encouraging. All I did was scowl and storm off like I usually do, too confused and frustrated to deal with any of it, or any of them.

But Shizuru had followed. Of course she would follow, it wasn't like it was surprising, but I waited until we were far enough away from the others before I turned around to acknowledge her.

What, I had asked her. She didn't say anything, I recall. She kept her distance, and at first she wouldn't even look at me, but then she slowly raised her head, and her burgundy eyes were looking straight into mine, and…And I don't really know what I saw. Or maybe I saw so much that it all jumbled together and I couldn't make any sense of it.

I'm not sure who walked away from the silence first. I don't even remember coming back to my apartment, but I did. Everything was in shambles—the whole place was ruined. Only the bathroom had been spared and so, after some scavenging, I found a blanket and a couple of pillows and curled up in the tub. With the door closed it was dark, but it didn't do much good to keep out the autumn chill or my racing thoughts.

I thought this would feel better, everything finally being over, but somehow it feels worse. When we were all at each other's throats at least we had a motive, some direction, but now…what did we have to drive us now? Leftover emotions from a recent past that felt more like a dream than reality? Or was it the desire to try to move forward with our lives, to see that a future actually exists after the Carnival?

The fact that there wasn't supposed to be a future after the Carnival is what makes my body shiver more than the cold air seeping in under the bathroom door. I had resigned myself to my fate—that I was going to die in that church with my best friend in my arms. I had never even considered the possibility of returning to the aftermath, or having to deal with all the baggage the Carnival had left us with. How are we expected to carry that burden? Is living through that madness supposed to be a blessing, or another curse branded upon us like the red mark of the HiME star?

Lightly, my finger traces over the spot on my lower back. The mark had already faded away, but everything it stood for, everything it had brought about, I knew would not vanish quite so easily. It's this thought that makes me curl up and draw the blanket even tighter around me. What's going to happen now? How are the HiME and everyone else involved supposed to face each other? How am I supposed to face Shizuru?

For a moment I wonder if wanting to return to that state of nothingness is a horrible desire to have before chastising myself for even thinking it at all. Of course living is better than being dead. Living is better, it's always better, even under these extreme circumstances. The desire to live is what had allowed me to survive that car accident with my mother, and to keep on surviving even after my father had all but abandoned me in that cold, lonely hospital room. I had lived and I had persevered, and I had become strong. I had transcended death. I had done so twice now, and if I had done all of those things then surely I would be able to continue on.

But now I am no longer a HiME. I have no elements to summon with just a flickering thought. I cannot call out to Duran to fight by my side. I'm just a normal person. A normal person with an extraordinary past and a mess of a future because of it. I don't even have a home any more, or a motorcycle to help me clear my thoughts with a long drive. I have nothing...

When the thought of Shizuru surfaces from the haze of my mind I'm not sure whether I want to laugh or cry. Just what is she to me? My friend, my protector, my betrayer. The one I was willing to die for. She has assumed so many different roles in my life over a short period of time, but what is she now?

There is a part of me that hates her, and a part of me that fears her. What she had done during the Carnival…had that really been my friend? The same one who wore an easygoing smile and made inappropriate jokes, how could that same person do all of those horrible things without feeling any remorse? Is that the real Shizuru I had seen? A twisted, broken girl so hell-bent on having her way that she would do whatever it took to succeed at her goal?

But then, despite everything, there is a part of me that loves her and fears what would happen if she were ever to disappear from my life. All of those things she had done…she had done them for me. She had been doing what she thought was right during the chaos of the Carnival just like everyone else, and made mistakes just like the rest of us. What she had done was exactly what I had wanted to do since I woke up in that hospital bed after my mother's death. Can I really fault Shizuru for that? Because the scale of her actions was larger than anyone else, or because she actually accomplished what I never could?

Her downfall, it had all been my fault. If I hadn't been so stuck on revenge, if I hadn't been so ignorant to her affection towards me, maybe this all could have been avoided.

I…I need to see her. I need to see her right now so I can apologize. For everything.

Throwing the blanket off of me, I hoist my body up and out of the bathtub, shoving the bathroom door back so hard that it rebounds against the wall from the force. I'm making for the table in the living room to retrieve my keys before I realize that the table is in two pieces and there are no keys and no bike to drive. I scoff before turning on my heels and heading out the door anyway.

As I'm walking down the abandoned city streets toward the Fuuka dorms, my hands shoved deep in the pockets of my uniform jacket, I begin to wish I had changed my clothes. Or at least grabbed a coat to try to block out the cold night air. What normally would have been a ten-minute drive takes several hours to traverse on foot, something I wasn't really considering when I went barging out of my apartment. Too prideful to turn back, I trek on, even when the light drizzle turns into actual rain. How dumb would that be, I think, to survive the Carnival only to die from sickness brought about by the stupidity of walking around in the cold and the rain? I laugh for the first time in days.

When Fuuka Gakuen finally comes into sight so does the sun, and it makes me wonder just when I originally left the apartment and how long it took me to get here. Nothing has changed around the school in the hours that have passed. I guess I shouldn't have expected it to, unless it had all just been a bad dream like I hopelessly wish it had. It's not until I'm close enough to the dorm buildings to see the damage they've sustained that I recall that Shizuru's place got trashed just like my own. Remembering the fight between Mai and Mikoto and everything that happened here afterward makes my body shrink in on itself even more as I press forward.

Would Shizuru even be here, I wonder as I round the corner of the building, but then there she is. She standing outside of the building in the middle of the rain, gazing up at the destruction, and soaked to the bone just like me. Has she been standing here all this time? If she notices my presence, she doesn't acknowledge it, and the fact that her body tenses when I call out to her tells me that she wasn't aware at all.

I'm standing just a few paces away from her as Shizuru turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are wide in a mixture of disbelief and confusion, shock that not even she can hide so easily, and I can't help but think that if Shizuru is even at a loss as to what to do next then we're all screwed.

"Natsu…ki?" she carefully questions my presence.

"What are you doing?" I ask her as I move to stand beside her, my arms crossed tightly against my torso in a useless effort to stay warm, "How long have you been out here?"

Her eyes drift over me before she slowly shifts her gaze back to the building. "I don't know," is all she says.

Frustrated, I sigh and reach out to grab the arm hanging limply at her side. "Come on, I'm taking you inside," I retort, the annoyance seeping into my tone despite the fact that I'm in the exact same state that she's in. I don't expect to grab air as she recoils from my touch.

Shizuru spins quickly. Looking at me through the wet bangs plastered to her forehead, her burgundy eyes are hesitant and hurting. "Don't," she murmurs. It's a weak warning, but she still pulls her arm into herself, sheltering it away from me with her other one as she continues to watch me now over her shoulder.

Her rejection reminds me of how Mai was after Tate died, and makes me wonder if this desperate feeling festering in the pit of my stomach is the same one that Shizuru felt when I pushed her away in the garden.

My own body seems to curl in on itself as I look away. "Shizuru, I…I'm sorry," I mutter, hugging myself tightly again, "This is all my fault."

I can't think of anything more to say than that. Or maybe there's so much to say that it's far too overwhelming to do so right now. But when I look back over at her, Shizuru has turned back around a little and her eyes…her eyes just look sad.

"Natsuki can't blame herself for something I did on my own," she whispers, her voice cracking uncharacteristically as her expression begins to crumble.

I take a few tentative steps forward, and by the time I finally reach her, Shizuru is already crying, too tired to try to keep her emotions, or me, at bay. The only other time I had seen her like this was just the day before after we had been brought back from the dead, and as I move to pull her into my arms, Shizuru seems to sink into me, quietly weeping as she buries her face in my shoulder. My own silent tears mingle with the rain still beating down on us as I squeeze her tighter, too exhausted to care about the reasons that brought us to this point, only knowing that my best friend and I need each other in this moment more than anything else.


End file.
